Hello Again, Partner
by Chyme for the Rhyme
Summary: Years pass and death comes knocking on Yusaku's door. Ai despairs. Or, is there perhaps some hope after all? {Aiball Week 2020 - February 8th: Reunion / Separation }


'How many times have I died now?'

The question made Yusaku pause, Ai could see it in the stiff set if his shoulders. But-

'Have you seriously lost count?'

Okay, well, _ouch_. Just the tense tone and the way it had Yusaku biting out his question, made Ai wince in return.

'Eeeeh, not exactly...it was just...weird to think about it. I don't even understand why I voiced it aloud.'

Yusaku paused again. 'Don't think too much about it. You're alive right now; focus on that.'

And unbidden, Ai could read clear as day, in the hunch of Yusaku's defensive shoulders that unspoken _'don't make me think about it.'_

He obliged. If only because their situations could never be reversed; Yusaku could only ever die 'once' after all.

* * *

Ai had never actually told Yusaku this; but each human in the network had their own unique electrical signature. It sounded obvious except...well. The way each brain was mapped out when someone entered the Vrains or any other virtual world was identical, everyone should have gone through the same process, of having all the neurons in their brain, copied and rewritten into scrolling line of codes that spread out into a small, tight electrical web, that moved and rewrote itself each time they had a new thought, a new impulse. And so statistically, _logically_, certain patterns should have reoccurred when they locked into this program, when human brains were dismantled down into raw data. But from experience Ai could tell you, from having held the consciousness of other humans inside himself even for a short while, that you could _feel _the difference. If you got too close, interfered in any way, you could feel the warm pulse of them like a signal, each one frighteningly unique.

And since Ai was a bit of closet romantic – well, okay Yusaku would have said he had _appalling _taste – he liked to think that maybe, all those threads of data, and the warm jolt they left in their wake was something akin to a human soul. Perhaps the very weight of it converted into data. He liked the idea of it, if only because it meant that he, all of him, Ai the Ignis, had one too.

Yusaku's of course was the great prize. But it worried Ai as the years passed, when he saw it degrade whenever they entered the network more. That web of neurons, once as bright and sharp as the gleam of a diamond, now was frazzled and sparked like a live wire, stuttering as it lost a little more of itself. And as though in imitation of this downgrade, Yusaku's back began to bend, like the droop of a willow tree, his stomach rebelling and refusing to disgust the same rich food he had once wolfed down. No more hot dogs for him.

The whole thing terrified Ai. He found himself frantically mapping out what was left of Yusaku's neurons with his mind, plotting to create make-shift back-ups, even copies; after all, as the world moved forward there was talk of converting human consciousness into data, of setting it free to live in the virtual world, like an immortal being. So perhaps...perhaps...

'No,' Yusaku said steadily. The burn of his green eyes was low, duller than they had been years ago. And when they looked at Ai, they didn't focus on his eyes as easily. They slipped away, strained at the wrong spots on his face, and Ai had to lean his deceptively youthful face forward, closer so Yusaku's could hook onto the right features again.

'Ai. That's not the way I want to live.'

'But you'll be dead!' Ai protested. 'As long as there's something of you left behind that can think, then it means you, Fujiki Yusaku, are still alive.'

He still remembered his rebirth after he had tricked Yusaku into killed him, every razor-sharp moment of clarity that had sprang into him three months after his death when the data had poured in, overwhelming his processor enough to confuse him until Yusaku had guided it to where it needed to go with his keyboard and clever fingers. And surely now, was his chance to do the same for Yusaku, he could guide him, help him, and sure it would be strange and confusing for Yusaku, but he would be there, with Ai and _why wasn't that good enough?!_

But Yusaku simply stared at all the pamphlets Ai had shoved at him and at the articles projected from the holographic monitor above his bed, and sighed.

'Those people...they don't realise that they're already dead.'

Ai fell back from him, stung.

'No,' he said steadily, fists clenched. 'They're data now, like _I am_. Is that what I am to you? A-a freaking _zombie!?'_

Yusaku had sighed irritably and stared at him. 'Ai; think. Those people have locked themselves into a world that adapts to them, not one they have to adapt to like they would have to in the real world. They can program the taste of the food they remember eating directly into themselves whenever they want without having to exert actual effort to get it-'

_That's rich,_ Ai thought, _coming from you, Mr I like to slam down buttons on the microwave with my knobbly fingers!_

Something of his thoughts must have reflected on his face, because Yusaku cut himself off and closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened them again. 'The point is, they're spoiling themselves. They think they've living in paradise.' He stopped to sigh again. 'They don't realise that they've just reached heaven early. And that to me isn't living. Without pain, they won't grow.'

He looked at Ai. 'It's different for you; despite everything you keep trying to connect to this world and understand it.' He offered Ai a wobbly smile. 'And I know it's because I'm your main attachment to it.' A hand, one that trembled and shook as though it were part of a puppet on a string, wavered through the air towards Ai's own. Ai took it gracefully, stoking over the lines that crept into the skin, rugged with marks of age he couldn't erase.

'Even so: promise me you won't shut yourself off. I know it's hard, but try to live, Ai.'

Ai stared at him. 'You always demand the impossible of me, Yusaku-chan. Ahhh, how am I meant to live up to these expectations?'

'You try,' Yusaku said firmly, his grip tightening as much as it could; which wasn't very much at all. 'You keep trying even if you fail. I believe in you; you're more alive than plenty of humans I've met.'

Well. How could Ai fight against that? He couldn't. No more than he could step in and prevent old age of robbing him of Yusaku.

Yusaku smiled, and it was watery and weak, a far cry from the strong line Ai knew it could have been, but still. But still. 'You're also braver than a lot of them too. When it matters, when it counts, you always are. Even back when I didn't want you to be.' His hand loosened. 'This time though; I want you to be very brave indeed.'

Ai could have lied. He could have grabbed Yusaku's consciousness and forcefully uploaded it into paradise. He could have lived with Yusaku not forgiving him. And yet, looking at Yusaku as he breathed and fought against his own body, Ai wondered, if in the end he could live with himself turning out to be no better than Lightning or Bohman. Because that was what doing such a thing would make of him.

So in the end he did what he always did; he left it up to Yusaku.

* * *

It was hard being brave. Watching Yusaku's bones burn, receiving the urn and scattering the ashes into the wind. But Ai, despite the scream in him, the pain that spilled out inside every system that he kept re-writing frantically in an effort to lessen the agony, couldn't bring himself to keep the urn and all of Yusaku in a house, on a shelf where it would collect dust. Or even in a warehouse no one would ever brush against. No; Yusaku had spent so much of his early life trapped; it felt right that he set him free, in the wind, against the sun and rain and other things that had touched him. They could tear him away from the world Ai had been born in, a world that Yusaku had fought to save.

The love didn't fade. And Ai sunk into the network, bitter and afraid, terrified of becoming a second Bohman but digging deep, recalling the spoken inflection of Yusaku's words, his laugh, buried deep into his perfect memories.

Sometimes, when he was lonely, which was often, he scanned the network, and mingled with other humans. Even talked to the joy-kill Pandor. But not often.

And yet, one day, _there it was_. A signal, a pattern, he knew oh so well, but could not believe.

Ai froze. But the map that unfurled, that transmitted one human's brain into the network was rigid, the codes locked into the exact same patterns of his own beloved Yusaku-chan's. Ai compared the data in his memories, looked at the old back-ups he had never completed, and the feelings, the sheer impossibly of certain mental process repeating themselves, made a mockery of all the statistical probabilities he ran.

Ai's first impulse was to spy, to gather data, to collect information the way he had with Yusaku. But he was so tired. All of the humans who knew of him, the Ignis, were dead, Pandor was a rotten conversationalist, even at the best of times, and well, he was bored. Sooo...

'Hello, hello!' he called, bursting into life with a flare of perfect colour, making sure his hair swept out dramatically just _so._

The _girl_ stared at him. 'Go away,' she said and turned away, her eyes locking on to something else, something only she could see, as her own green hair wavered and fell around her ears.

Well. This was new. The whole eh, gender thing. **But.**

'Hey, hey,' Ai said cajolingly, falling into step with her. 'We've only just met and you've already decided to send me packing? I haven't even done anything to make you hate me yet!'

The girl didn't even look at him, cold and dismissive just as Yusaku had once been. 'I only hate one person,' she muttered, her voice an angry growl; just like Yusaku's when he had been barking at the Knights of Hanoi once upon a time. 'And since you're not him, you should leave me alone.'

Oh. _Oh_. Well _this_ was definitely more familiar territory. Ai smirked and followed.

* * *

Oh, she hated him at first, despite what she said. Or rather she had no patience. She would ignore his jokes and verbal jabs until she couldn't any more. And she was mean; she could cut him off with a stare or a glare, and she kept insisting coldly that they weren't friends.

Just like an old certain someone, huh?

No, it was only when Ai helped her hack into her records and unveil the identity of the man she wanted to punish that she softened towards him. Slightly. The way a glacier might develop a slight stream running down of its side.

'You're like a disease,' she told Ai, and wow, even Yusaku hadn't been that mean. Oh no, wait a minute, he _had._ 'One I don't want to catch.'

But her eyes still widened, still softened and caught the artificial light in the network as Ai pulled her to all the secret tucked-away hideouts in the network he had created for him and Yusaku. He unveiled them, towering mountains and beautiful patios, gardens spreading away, green and sure from each spiralled stone.

'Show-off,' Yusaku had told him once.

'Show-off,' Yusaku 2.0 told him now.

Well. That wasn't fair. She had a name. Momo, sweet as the peach she sure _wasn't_, and true, it also wasn't the one he had spent years singing and attaching suffixs to. But hey, he could adapt.

And yes, he was more sure of it now; some instinct screaming at him loud and clear. She didn't walk like Yusaku, and she had a different name, a different tone but she still spoke in the same way, harsh and cutting, firm, but with the potential for her words to fall soft and kind, the way Yusaku's always had. And her eyes weren't green, not in the real world, more of an orange-honey colour.

'They're like amber!' he had told her grinning, as he reclined on her bed, legs crossed, with his chin perched on his hands; he was going for a cool, charming look, one he knew had most humans swooning. 'Mmmm, would you like me to get a necklace to match them? You'd look so cute!'

And she...had thrown a pillow at him. Without so much a glance at his handsome face! And urgh, yeah, she was a little more physical, than Yusaku in that respect. A different gender, a different past, a different name, a slightly shorter body...there were a lot of differences. Enough for Ai to sometimes, in weaker moments, wonder if he was fooling himself, if indeed, data could lie.

'But your hair's a disaster,' he had snapped out upon rescuing his face from the pillow. 'Just like your whole personality.' And then he had marched out, the way a human, or at least a basic SOLtiS would, with her watching him, her gaze cool, steady and maybe, just maybe, slightly amused. Just like Yusaku's had been. And oh, it _hurt_. And just _what was he doing?_

She didn't know how special he was, or the history of the doomed Ignis. She thought he was a quirky program, lost and wandering after his creator had died; Ai had left just enough fake research and drawn-out news articles for her curiosity to feed on. Enough for both of them to stay safe.

'Oh yeah,' he sneered, poking his head back round the door, determined to march his way out of her life for...well. A good long chunk of time! 'And also all your clothes are boring. You_ have no_ taste!'

She raised a brow and stared pointedly at his cape, that was in danger of entangling a nearby houseplant, looking all smug and secure as she did so in a _boring_ t-shirt and jeans. Urgh.

He had left her there, brain buzzing and tormented. Because Yusaku...he wouldn't have thrown a pillow. He would have just ignored him or had a sharp reply of some kind.

And yet...the raw data that portrayed her brain, the very essence of it, the way Ai could feel the warmth when he strolled too close, when he looked at her and she glanced at him...it was too near a match to Yusaku's. More importantly, she felt like him, exactly.

It didn't make sense. What did though, was the panic that infused his being when his sensors registered the fire alarm in her house go off not six hours later. And the cameras in her house didn't show her running outside the way she should have. _How dare she. How dare she try to leave again._

His SOLtiS body had struck blow after blow against her door, had wrought heavy bumps into it's panels. He had even raised fists against the windows. But the slim security force-field that slid over the bricks and mortar, over the thin cracks in the glass that buckled beneath his hands and would not break, remained firm.

For the first time in a long while, Ai cursed the progress of technology and whoever had designed a force-field this buggy. And seconds later, his SOLtiS body was cast aside, crashing to the ground, as he tore through the security measure and wove his way round the firewall. It tore chunks of data from him as he soared through, had some of his newer coding trailing from him like a burst of blood in the network; angrily he tore his form free, recompiling himself into one that was smaller, could dodge round more traps and then he was out, his small Ignis head bursting from the bubble of her mobile phone screen.

'Move,' he hissed, his form lengthening, his slim arms scratching against her cheeks, as his tiny hands clambered down to her chin to take hold of it and shake it. Or at least attempted to. 'You stupid idiot, fight harder for your life!'

Curls of smoke poured in from under the door she had attempted to shut against the heat, and she stared at him, uncomprehending in her terror. And then she had whacked him again, this time, with a toilet plunger.

'Ow! Hey! That's dirty! I'm trying to help, stupid.'

She had narrowed her eyes.

'Where's the generator for your force-field?'

She had given him an angry look, then pointed to the bottom of the sink, the ruffled skid-marks of the carpet beneath showing how she had dragged the small metallic box into the bathroom.

Ai stared at it; it glistened, or rather the force-field that had sprung up around it did, the water she had sprayed it running off its sides harmlessly.

'Urgh, seriously? Who designed this death-trap!'

A cough shook Momo's chest, her hand, how wrapped around the phone, rattling him alongside her. And that, right there, was all the motivation Ai needed.

Tentacles arose from him and he could feel Momo, beneath him twitch and tremble as his old data-guzzling form reached out, one eye glaring balefully out at the cursed generator as he sucked as much data from it as he could, shredding it off it's force-field in minutes. And then with a savage thrust he chucked it out the window.

'Go!' he urged her. 'Hurry, hurry!'

Her hands ripped open over the shards of broken glass, but with an almost scrabbling haste, she half jumped, half fell from the now gaping window. And Ai was right there in his SOLtiS form to catch her.

She stared at him. And then at her now empty phone.

'Ai?' she asked.

He pouted. 'What, no thank you, kiss? Geez, you'd make a rubbish girlfriend.'

She stared at him hard. Then tugged on his hair even harder.

_'Ow-ow-ow!'_

'That's for not telling me you could turn into something from a hentai film!'

...Yusaku would never have put it like that. And he would never have pulled his hair. Well, okay he had sometimes it was usually when they doing something much nicer and more pleasant, where grabbing onto various body-parts could hurt in a fun way...

He looked at Momo, her fingers still encased in his hair. Her trembling fingers. All of her was shaking, the vibrations running from her arm into hair, and yes, she was still trapped in his arms, but her eyes were blazing, angry, determined, the wrong colour, the wrong shape, _the wrong person..._

But still, staring at him angrily, in that moment, she was so like Yusaku that it hurt.

* * *

Ai had usually never told Yusaku his secrets. They had always had to be dragged out into the open, either by Revolver, or by Yusaku himself.

'Tell me,' she demanded, a yellow shock blanket wrapped over her shoulders, legs dangling off the end of a hospital bed.

He pursed his lips in response. His cape was spread out beside him, waging war against the duvet, but he found himself sitting beside her all the same, as though he had already made a decision.

'I'll tell you a story,' he decided. Then he grinned. 'And any resemblance to any person living or dead is strictly-'

She elbowed him in the side. But more gently than she could have.

And it was enough to get him to pour out...not everything. But enough for her to get the gist.

And she never looked away. The expressions that crossed her face were small subtle things, a twitch of the muscle here, a crease in the brow there. Understated reactions. Cute ones. Like Yusaku's.

'So,' she said finally. 'My brain is a match for his?' She stared at him. 'But I'm not him. You know that. My existence is completely separate from his.'

He smiled sadly. 'I know.' He looked up, out of the window, at the sky, the real sky, the sky humans had been staring at for generations as they wished their ancestors up there into an existence that could overpower death, it's very concept. Reincarnation was just another similar idea to it and one he had no hard proof for. Except perhaps, Momo herself.

'But there's no rational explanation for this repeated neural pattern I see in you either,' he told her, his voice grave and steady. 'And data doesn't lie.' He shot a side-glance at her. 'I get why you can't believe it or see it. You're a physical being, and to you, data_ can_ be a lie, especially since you can exist in this world without it governing your senses and experiences. But not to me. To me, it's the most truthful thing there is.'

And he didn't think he imagined the flicker in her eyes, the uncertainty there when he next smiled at her. Truthfully, he didn't want to push; as far as he could tell there was no room inside human minds for two sets of memories from two different lives. Otherwise he might have been tempted, slightly, to graft some of the memories he had from those back-ups of Yusaku into her own...

But no. He had seen what messing with memories in a human brain had helped turn Lightning into. He wasn't interested in scrabbling down the same path.

Momo stared at him. 'Well, I can tell you're not lying about the having free will part. No AI would logically put themselves through so much hassle for this, not with so uncertain an outcome. But I don't have to be an Ai to tell you that I can't be _him_ for you.'

Ai's smile widened. 'Then don't be. It would kinda creepy actually, if you were an exact copy. Humans shouldn't be able to be duplicates of each other, not like computer files can be.' He pinched her cheek, laughing as she shook him off with a scowl. 'You're my un-sweet Momo. A fruit that will never ripen. Yusaku was the same. All petulant and stubborn, even when he was quiet.' His smile faded. 'But I want to get to know you for your differences, as well as your similarities. There's a beauty in getting to know someone from scratch. From trying to forge a new bond, even when an old one breaks. Yusaku tried to teach me that.' He lowered his voice. 'Especially intim-AI-tely.'

She just looked at him. The way Yusaku had, with no real expression to her face. But of course, she was just Momo. And she proved it by shoving him off the bed a moment later.

'Ow!'

She sighed. Stared at the sky. Then reached out a hand to him. 'Can you hack the hospital records, get me to check out early? I only have some bandaged hands to worry about.'

Ai scowled. 'And why should I do someone who's so mean to me, any favours, huh?'

There may have been a slight smile on her face as she got up and walked towards the door. Then she turned, and without so much of an inclination of her head, she said those two words Ai had been waiting for without him even knowing it.

'Let's go.'

And just like he had with Playmaker, with Yusaku, Ai found himself following.

* * *

Years passed. He wasn't sure if Momo ever really believed the same thing he had did. But it was true what he told her. Data didn't lie. Not if it was uncorrupted. And Ai had decided to be brave, the way Yusaku had wanted him to be, and _believe._

It made it easier somehow, when cancer caught her cells, twisted them into weapons that would kill her, decades from the age Yusaku had been when he had died.

'Hey,' she told him, voice fluttering along the edge of exhaustion one day. 'Once I'm dead, if you ever find a brain wave pattern that's identical to mine, and Yusaku's too...come find me again.' Her face had twisted as he hugged her carefully, her bones razor-sharp from beneath her terrible clothes, far too fragile now, like a baby bird's. 'I'm not saying I believe what you do. But I don't want you to be lonely either.'

Well. Ai didn't want that either. But...

'I don't like that kind of quitter talk,' he said, frowning at her. He pumped a fist in the air. 'Fight! That's the privilege of those who are still alive.'

She looked at him. 'Maybe a bit longer. But I'm not strong enough to do it for as long as you like.' She hesitated. 'And I don't want to be uploaded into that afterlife Cloud either. I've spoken to those people who died in the real world. And they...they're not people anymore. Not really. And not like you either. You're a person. But they...I don't think human minds were built right to handle being separated from the physical world forever.'

He sobered instantly. Because oh boy, this really was karma. This must be exactly what Yusaku had felt, staring across at him from across the duelling field when Ai told him he was destined to die, no matter who won or lost. Huh. Guess his partner had gotten their revenge at long last.

'How like you,' he told Momo. And stroked her hair softly. They still had time. Not as much as he would've liked. But enough to say goodbye without duelling for it.

* * *

She died. But unlike Yusaku, she had still had a human family to leave behind, so he didn't greedily take her ashes for himself. He watched, silently, as she was lowered into the ground instead. And then turned on his heel and left. That body, burnt, rotten, or otherwise, was just parts that had broken down. The soul inside, that had been Yusaku, then Momo, was gone, set free from that silly meaty shape. Still. If it came back, if _they _came back, they would not be Yusaku. Or Momo. And so the grief that struck him was just as heavy and unrelenting as it had been the first time round.

And he could have burrowed deeper into the network in response. Could have sulked and let the simulations he had once been so afraid of blossom and unfurl into reality. But he didn't. Instead he made sure Momo's family weren't screwed over by any of the nastier hackers out there. And waited. Stupidly. Earnestly. In hope.

Fourteen years later he found it. Another pattern identical to the last two. It bloomed out, so stark and beautifully familiar, razor sharp and keen. He had set up sensors into the network to pick up its trace, to read all possible imprints of the human minds that launched themselves into the grip of the network, like flies chasing the silken strands of a spider web. And they rang out, bright and clear, when they found a match, too close to be anything but Yusaku _Number Three_, or Momo _Number Two._ Depending on how you looked at it.

Could he do this forever? Ai wondered. What happened if the network failed, if humans refused to plug themselves in? Would he wander out into the world and touch each human's head, read the data inside them to see if it was a close-enough match to the one soul he wanted to stay beside?

'Hi!' he sung, bright and full of life as he leapt down to a surly boy, a little younger than both Yusaku and Momo had been. 'Rejoice! For Ai-chan, the one you've been waiting for, is here again!'

The boy stared at him. Then turned. And walked away, dismissing him as a weirdo.

Ai grinned and followed. He knew this game, this chase. Maybe it was one Yusaku could not have foreseen, and quite possibly one he wouldn't have wanted for him to follow forever. But since Yusaku had decided to join the great beyond, to mix and merge his 'data' with the rest of the universe only to have it spat out and sent straight back here to where Ai was waiting, he didn't have much room to complain, did he?

Ai's smile gentled. 'Hello again,' he murmured under his breath, to the boy who had turned his back at him for the third time in a row. Well, third life in a row. But that would change. He would pivot back to Ai eventually.

'It's nice to see you again, partner.'

* * *

**Notes:** Originally wrote this for the 'Reborn' theme on Feb 11th. Then I got another idea that fell more along the idea of an AU and I was like...great. The AU doesn't fit with the other themes, but at a stretch this one kinda fits the theme of 'Reunion / Separation' so here it goes, to enter the fray...

Also...is the reincarnation a real thing that's happening here, or is Ai just seeing what he wants to? You decide.

I feel kinda guilty that I made the next reincarnation a girl given that Ai/Yusaku is male/male pairing but it would feel even weirder if the whole reincarnation process was limited to a single gender. I don't think it should work like that. Wouldn't it stunt a soul's growth if it was stuck experiencing the world through the same gender over and over again?


End file.
